¿Peter Kay opens £26m tour at MEN Arena

Comedy star Peter Kay starts a record-breaking tour on Tuesday night that is set to gross an estimated £26million. He's already sold 750,000 tickets for his big return to stand-up comedy after a seven-year break which begins tonight at the M.E.N. Arena.

Comedy star Peter Kay starts a record-breaking tour on Tuesday night that is set to gross an estimated £26million.

He's already sold 750,000 tickets for his big return to stand-up comedy after a seven-year break which begins tonight at the M.E.N. Arena.

Based on the standard ticket price of £35 each, that would add up to a gross figure of £26,250,000 from ticket sales for the tour.

The Bolton-born funnyman has been testing his material in a series of secret warm-up gigs at initimate studio spaces at The Lowry Theatre in Salford and The Met in Bury over the past few weeks, but tonight will be the first time audiences get to see the eagerly-anticipated new show in its full form.

It begins an unprecedented run of gigs at the M.E.N. Arena, the venue where he once worked as one of the yellow-jacketed stewards before being catapulted to national comedy icon.

Initially, Peter had announced the 20-night residency at the Arena as “The Tour That Doesn't Tour Tour”.

That run eclipses anything which the venue has ever seen in its 15-year history – the previous longest run was Take That when the manband performed 11 nights in December 2007.

But after Kay's initial tickets sold out in just 60 minutes, he was eventually persuaded to take the tour on the road to venues across the UK.

Since then there's also been the addition of an extra 15 nights in Manchester over the coming year.

It takes Peter back out on the road for the first time since his Mum Wants a Bungalow Tour.

Although he admits that despite his huge popularity, there are still plenty of nerves.

He said at the time of announcing the first gigs: “It's taken me a while to want to perform stand-up again, the main catalyst was writing my second book, Saturday Night Peter, which was all about my days working on the club circuit performing stand-up around Manchester and across Britain.

“Recalling all those thoughts and nerves brought back a desire to go back. I think i'd regret not doing stand-up again, it is terrifying, there's no getting around that but when it goes well there's nothing like it in the world.”